Hassett's House, Pockthorpe,

NORWICH.

:

COMMUNICATED BY

THE REV. JAMES BULWER, M. A.

ON ground to the right of the junction of the old roads. leading from Bishop's bridge and Pockthorpe gates towards the coast, now included within the site of the present Barracks, stood the Grange, the Lathys Yard, and other premises formerly belonging to the Monks of the Cathedral. On the dissolution of the monastery, these premises were granted to the Dean and Chapter as part of the Manor of Pockthorpe, and were soon after leased by them for a long series of years. Among the early lessees the name of Blenerhasset, or Blevhasset, and, for shortness, Hassett, occurs; and his residence as it appeared in 1791, according to a drawing then taken with a camera by the elder Ninham, is represented in the etching here given.

The house seems at this time to have been uninhabited and falling to ruin. The local traditions relating to the ghosts and apparitions at the time of its last occupation,' are mentioned in the privately printed volumes of the "House of Gournay;" and, as a haunted house has been ever a convenient hiding-place for those who needed one,-Woodstock, with its apparitions and unearthly terrors, as described in the

By Edward Hassett ?

pleasant pages of Sir Walter Scott, will occur to every one,these traditions may probably have had their origin in the use to which smugglers, before the introduction of gas or the city police, may have put the ruined edifice, or been invented to secure to them a greater freedom from interruption when engaged in their lawless calling; for the old house was very conveniently situated as a receptacle for smuggled goods, which in those days of prohibition tariffs were brought with comparative facility to this part of Mousehold, outside the city gates, by the trackways leading in from the coast. Mr. Gurney gives a wood-engraving of the house from a point of view different to that of the etching, and many particulars of the family of Hassett :that they were a junior line from those at Frenze, in Norfolk; that William Blennerhasset obtained his lease in 1547; that the house was taken down about the year 1792; that it was haunted; that his informant, an aged Pocktorian, gave him the particulars of some of the apparitions; that a dead body was seen to roll across a room; that there was a closet which never had been opened; and that the doors of two rooms had been plastered up, and in attempting to open them, two persons had been struck blind. His account also gives the legend, common as well to Barsham Hall, in Suffolk, "that old Hasset had been seen in his coach and four driven over Bishop's gate and the tops of the houses, by a coachman and horses without heads, and when the whip was cracked, flashes of fire came from it and illuminated the whole city." -House of Gourney, p. 1001 et seq.

In addition to these particulars, I propose to give some, relating to the property and its early history; which, if not less authentic than the ghost stories of the old Pocktorian, I cannot hope will be quite so interesting.

How early the Grange was built on this spot, or what part of it was contained in Hasset's house, it is now very difficult to learn; but there is evidence of the existence of the Monks'

Grange as early as 1306. Bishop Herbert (1096-1119) took the whole manor of Thorp into his own hands, and gave the Monks for their part of Thorp, Pockthorpe and certain lands, which now, says the narrative written about 1306, "belong to the Monks' Grange."

"Herbertus vo Episcopus memorat opib3 misericordie sedulus insistens ad suceptonem leprosore qn" dam domu ex" civitate Norwye in solo ecctie sue in honore beate marie magdalene fundavt ad eore sustentatonem quasdam Pras t possessiones pdce Ecchie dedit. Cetere quia deus Epūs monastio suo honeorosius esse noluit quod utiq, necessario fieret si iux Norwycũ nich haberet vbi in adventu suo declinare posset: Man'ium de Thorp ob causam pdcam in manu sua retinuit. Set eisdem ppte sua de Thorp: Pockthorp t quasdam t'ras que nunc spectant ad Gangias monacho donav verum quia monachis videbat qa de dão manio parum eis contulerat eisdem satfacere volens manium de Gnatinton cu faldagijs eis dedit t alia que in carta sbsc'pta continent'."Reg. 1. Eccles. Cath. Norw. fol. 21.2

In a "Compotus Magistri Cellarii," dated 1535, Pockthorpe is not named, but the Monks' Grange is. From this account, part of which is translated in the note below,3 we

2 "Now the memorable Bp. Herbert, being diligent in the works of mercy, founded without the city of Norwich, on the land of his church, a certain house, in honor of B. Mary Magdalen, for the reception of lepers; and for their support he gave certain lands and possessions of the aforesaid church. But because the said Bishop was unwilling to be too burdensome to his monastery as to what might be necessary if he had not (a place) near Norwich, where he might sojourn at his coming, for the aforesaid cause, he retained the manor of Thorp in his own possession. But to the same for their part of Thorp, he gave Pockthorp, and certain lands which now belong to the Monks' Grange. But because it seemed to the monks that he had conferred on them too little of the aforesaid manor, wishing to satisfy them, he gave to them the manor of Gnatington, with the faldage, and other things which are contained in the underwritten charter." 3 The account of Lord William Castleton, Prior of Norwich, of the office of the Master of the Cellaries, from the feast of St. Michael the Archangel A.D. 1535 and in the 27th year of the reign of K. Henry VIII. to the feast of St. Michael [VOL. VII.]

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